ABSTRACT Purpose To characterize cortical auditory evoked potentials with speech stimuli in children with asymptomatic CMV infection compared to non-infected children with typical development of hearing, speech, and language. Methods The sample included 23 children with asymptomatic congenital cytomegalovirus infection and 16 control children, matched by age, sex, head circumference, and socioeconomic status. Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials were recorded using speech stimuli /da/ and /ga/ at 70 dB SPL, with electrodes placed at the vertex (Cz), forehead (Fpz), and earlobes (A1 and A2). The presence of components was analyzed and compared between groups using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results The analysis of the waves indicated that the control group showed neural responses closer to those observed in mature auditory pathways, with the presence of N1 and P2 in the formation process, evidenced by clearer wave morphology. Regarding latency, significantly higher values were observed in the control group for the /ga/ syllable. The CMV group exhibited higher amplitudes for the N2 component, indicating greater neural effort in auditory stimulus discrimination. Conclusion Children with asymptomatic cytomegalovirus may have alterations in central auditory processing with differences in detection and discrimination of acoustic cues compared to the control group. Cortical auditory evoked potentials are a tool to assess these alterations, and further research is needed to understand the effects of CMV infection on central auditory development.
Madeira et al. (Thu,) studied this question.